The End

April 11, 2014April 11, 2014 / roughwighting / 25 Comments

The end could be the beginning, or,

it could really damn well be the END.

A famous quote is needed here –like “to be or not to be.”

No Shakespeare am I, but I wonder if

“The end of never is the beginning of always”?

Books finish with The End. But is the story over?

Do the characters live on, at least in the reader’s mind?

In that case, the end is never-ending – infinite,

at least until the last reader is gone.

A week before my dad died, he declared,

“I’ve realized that when I die, it’s over.

Nothing is left but cold old bones.

I go nowhere, and nowhere is the end.”

I ignored him, hoping for some hope but

held his hand when he took his last breath.

Joyfully we both realized at the same time

That he was wrong.

In honor of National Poetry Month, and in the words of Rumi:

Bad Hair Day

April 4, 2014April 4, 2014 / roughwighting / 28 Comments

I’ve never had a bad hair day.

I’ve had a bad hair month, of course, and even a bad hair year.

My first bad hair year occurred when the new hairdresser ignored my plea to “only cut the split ends.” But you know that sound.

Snip. “Oops.”

Snip. “Oops again! Better even it up.”

My college long-haired look.

I was a freshman in college in Virginia, where everyone talked in a slow drawl, and the hairstylists in the beauty salons all wore teased hair and cherry red lipstick. I walked in the shop, a tiny ‘Steel Magnolias’ kind of place attached to the owner’s home; I sported a long brunette mane that almost reached the middle of my back.“Just a trim,” I said. “Boyfriend’s coming for the college harvest dance.”

I left the place with curly hair cropped at the bottom of my earlobe. Actually, looking at photos of it now, the haircut suited me.

But my boyfriend didn’t think so, and he tagged after my long-haired blonde roommate all weekend long.

Now, I’m smarter (and older – no long hair anymore). When I find a hairstylist I like, I stay with her, year after year after year. She becomes a member of the family, so to speak. She knows to not even approach my hair with mousse or spray or anything sticky and smelly. She knows to only cut a ‘fraction’ each time (if she really followed those directions, my hair would be reaching my rump by now). She doesn’t panic when she hears me breathing out, breathing in, loudly, with each snip.

But my man is the most nervous one during my every-6-week-salon trips.

“AGAIN?” he asks. He hates my hair when I return from the hair salon. No matter how diligent the hair stylist is, she can’t recreate the way I dry and style my hair (which includes closing my eyes, waving the blow dryer around my head for 7.5 minutes, scrunching my curls, then leaving for work)

News Anchor Hair

So when I return from my hair appointment yesterday, my man claims I look like a newscaster, hair straight and bouncy, falling in place just right.

In short, not “me.”

Then he wonders out loud with hope in his heart: “Are you washing your hair tonight?”

Every woman knows one of the great things about getting her hair done is NOT having to wash it for a day, or two, or three.

So I ignore him, but here’s me first thing this morning.

Straight and fluffy, not “me.”

Yes, I’m heading for the shower now.

Ode to Writers Everywhere

March 28, 2014March 28, 2014 / roughwighting / 27 Comments

The Writing Instructor

The refrigerator hums like a turtle in a small trickling stream. Soft, contented, but with a slight hiccup now and then.

I try to ignore the soothing hum and continue to talk on, too loud at times, but there’s a cougher in the group, and I don’t want my words drowned out.

What an expression: how can words drown? Well, I guess the same way my ideas seem to drown at times. When I’m trying so hard to express myself, I get intense, yet I see a dazed expression on my listeners’ faces, so it must be me, my words, that are drowning them in boredom.

Oh shoot, am I boring? I stop the conversation mid-stream, and no one seems to notice. If a small waterfall suddenly stopped in the middle of Yosemite, you’d think those around would notice. The hikers and bikers, the park rangers and sightseers would shout out: “What in the world?”

But no shouts of concern from my listeners when I shut my mouth and halt my waterfall of a fascinating story about writing. Well, I have been told that my stories can go on and on, and on, for paragraphs when they could be just a sentence or two.

So I order them to practice what I have just preached about Cinquains.

A 5-line poem, invented by the early 20th century poet Adelaide Crapsey and inspired by the Japanese tanka, with 22 syllables arranged in a distinct pattern, no mandatory rhyme scheme, stanzas of 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables. Crapsey always titled her cinquains, effectively utilizing the title as a sixth line.

“WRITE!” I command.

But before I begin I pause in our little writing room (a converted kitchen/dining room, in fact), which vibrates with the sound of fingers tapping on flat black keys and ink sliding against paper: a happy sound; a creative, invigorating, satisfying sound; while the low hum of a dog’s sleepy snores surround my group in a warm writing hug.

Now, a challenge – do you dare create your own cinquain here?

In My Little Town

March 21, 2014March 20, 2014 / roughwighting / 38 Comments

“A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Pitman, New Jersey, small town, growing up, childhood

Main Street, Pitman (Jesse Bair/South Jersey Times)

I couldn’t wait to leave my little town. Pitman, NJ. Where everyone knew your name, your business (and your parents’), where you lived, how you lived, and who your best friends were, or were not.

By my junior year in high school, I began collecting college brochures from the guidance counselor’s office: North Carolina, Vermont, Florida, even Ohio sounded romantic and far away from southern New Jersey.But my parents encouraged me to look at colleges less than five hours away. So I shortened the list to New York, Pennsylvania, Northern New Jersey (a completely different state from Southern NJ), and Virginia.

I left home for college at 18 and never looked back, so happy to be far from the claustrophobic closeness of the Wilsons and the Robbins, the Stephens and the Jones, the Murphys and the Johnsons.

Strangers! I wanted to find strangers in a strange land.

Forty years later, I smile at how far I’ve come.

Tiburon, CA, small town, friends, family

Main Street, Tiburon

I live, purposely, in a small town where everyone knows your name. My heart leaps when I enter the post office and run into John, a colleague and one of my writing students, and then Shirley, wife of a Board member from work.

After acquiring my stamps from Keith, our friendly postal clerk, I run across the street to the grocery store and wave to Dave, our one-time realtor, while listening to Phil, head of the seafood department, explain the merits of Pacific Snapper over Alaskan Cod.

I blush at the checkout counter when Derek, our accountant, points out the fresh cupcakes in my basket, and then, when racing out the door, I pet Molly, our former neighbor’s 10-year-old lab,

On my way to get gas, I note the three traffic lights in our small town while passing the elementary school that my 30-something children attended oh so many years ago. Oh, look at the lupine bush by the playground that I’ve watched grow up from a tiny sapling when it was planted along the Bay years ago.

Ah yes, I’ve come so far from the mediocrity of living in my small childhood town.

I’ve grown up to learn that the “ordinariness” that sometimes signals mediocrity can actually be another word for comfort, friendship, security, and love.

Mozart – perhaps you got it all wrong.